The present invention is directed to a method for tracking assets. More particularly, in a network service environment it is beneficial to track assets, such as various pieces of equipment, that are installed to support the network. The present invention improves upon known asset tracking systems by providing a real-time location-based asset tracking technique.
Asset Tracking Systems (ATS) are used in many companies to keep track of their field installations and inventory. Traditionally these kinds of systems are built around a central database designed to store information about the various field components. Updating of such a known database is done through manual processes such as field visits, barcode reading, remote database update by field technicians, etc. For a large distributed system, such as a telecommunication network or a utility network (gas, electricity, water, etc.), this kind of maintenance is very labor intensive (and consequently expensive). It is also time consuming to perform such maintenance. As a consequence of this expense and time commitment, the inventory information of a network may be less frequently updated. Many business activities that rely on correct asset tracking information are not able to perform timely and accurately with such infrequently updated databases. Today, the competition in the communication industry is getting ever stronger, and the technology is changing rapidly. A more responsive, timely, asset tracking system would be advantageous to maintain a competitive edge.
Once the updated information is gathered, and accumulated, it would be beneficial if there were a more meaningful way to present this information to a user.
The present invention provides a real-time location-based asset tracking system. The tracking system is based on an innovative location-based asset tracking engine.
According to one embodiment of the present invention, a network asset registers itself with a central database. The central database may be associated with a network operations center. A request to register the asset is generated automatically at initial power on after installation or at some other designated time post-installation. According to further variations on the embodiment, the asset may report not only installation location information, but also status information about the particular asset.
In a further variation on this embodiment, the asset-related information stored in the central database can be combined with map information such as a map representing a region or a service area. The combination of map and asset-related information yields a map that can be displayed and can include various information about the asset or assets associated with that region or service area.
According to the present invention, the techniques of asset tracking can be employed in wide area (distributed) systems such as a communication network, (e.g., a wireless service network) or a utility network (e.g., gas, electricity, water, etc.).